The heroes are savage because the villains are brutal, cruel, and vicious. At first, a gang just wants the village locksmith to open a stolen safe, but it soon escalates into wholesale torment. Though reminiscent of The Seven Samurai, the director and his revered action choreographers, Liu Chia-liang and Tang Chia, design each of the many struggles with gritty depravity and desperate power. The result is an especially realistic, even grueling, exercise in suspense.